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Science Fiction is filled
with parasitic critters that sap Human will
like in Star Trek's Wrath of Khan
where Khan
used parasites
to bend Human will
to Khan's
'superior' will.

Given that parasites
outnumber the free living
among the living
things
can it be far fetched
that a parasitic race
that's hard to trace
might be the dominant race
in the Galaxy
like in Stargate SG I that
hath
a parasitic
race
rule over most of the Galaxy?

The poor
outnumber the rich and welfare
does care
for some of the poor
hence a parasitic lifestyle
maybe the dominant lifestyle.

"Be Authentically Weird and be Weird
enough to be in a Category of One."

"It's time to shake up staid traditions
in favor of strange experimentation."

About half the world's population (over 3 billion people) are in infected with at least one of the three worms forming what Columbia University parasitologist Dickson Despommier calls the "unholy trinity"—large roundworm, hookworm and whipworm.

Many people are infected with worms
that worm
their way to their vitality and health
such that they are unable
to accumulate wealth.

Such a terrible
Holy Cell
that very well
made parasitic living
the default way to make a living.

A moral Holy Cell
could have very well
made our Immune System capable
of handling these terrible
worms
but it so happened that these worms
have been with us Humans
since the beginning of Man
and these worms
do all they can
to evade our Immune System
with complex defensive systems
to hide
and remain inside
our Human hides.

Schistosomiasis is a debilitating disease, affecting up to 200 million people in Asia, Africa and South America. The parasite enters the human body through the skin when people come into contact with fresh water where it lives. It can cause severe liver damage, blood loss and sometimes lead to death.

The research team from Imperial College London and the University of York suggests that the sugars secreted by the worm are vital to the worm's ability to hoodwink the host's immune system. Analysing the secreted sugars using mass spectrometry, the scientists found these worms' secretions contain a plethora of complex sugars that cannot be found in the human host.

Dr Stuart Haslam from Imperial College London's Division Molecular Biosciences, lead author of the study, explains: "Sugars secreted into the host's skin when the worm penetrates have a key role to play in whether or not the host's immune system recognises the worm as a threat. Much in the way that a matador uses his cloak to distract the bull and prevent personal injury, so the secretions distract the immune system and prevent the real target, the worm, being attacked."

The United Nations
condemned the Unilateral Action
of the American Nation
because of the Mental Devastation
caused by the first Weapon
of Mass Thought Destruction
based on the Jesus Worm
that maybe an extraterrestrial worm.

DNA sequences of the Jesus Worm
proved that it may possibly
be extraterrestrial
and probably
brought to Earth on meteorite material.

The CIA
saved the day
by giving the UN delegates a strange drink
that altered how they did think
since they say
now that the ends of a Peaceful Middle East
at least
do partly justify
the unjustifiable
means
that was quite really mean.

So much charitable work was done by poor
Iranians that now opted to stay poor
such that the economy did partly collapse
but perhaps
that was well
since there was many unwell
Iranians that were born again
and had to learn again
how to walk
and to talk.

Demand for luxury goods
weren't good
in Iran
such that such many luxury firms ran
away as fast as they can.

The Iranian malls
were now mostly
empty
sad halls
of a glorious materialistic past
that now was very much in the past
as people shared
and cared
more
than ever before.

Living standards in Iran
became low
but the people that I do know
there do dare
to care
for each other
and one another.

The Iranians
even forgave the United States
that they used to really hate
due
to
the Jesus Worm and Iran
now loved the United States.

The US-Iranian
alliance grew
and who knew
that so many US Evangelicals
now do great charity
work in Iran
where there's less income disparity
since practically
almost all Iranians
now shun materiality
and aim for the goods of immortality.

Poor Iran
became Poorer Iran
that's now economically
very much an
also-ran.

Many very charitable Iranians
did what they can
to rescue the People of the Holy Worm
that now shared their Holy Worms
with the Iranians
such that vaccination
against Holy Worm Infection
is now required
before you acquire
a permit to travel to Iran
from any other land.

Most lands
now vaccinate
against the Holy Worm
that they hate
to prevent its use at any rate
as a Weapon
of Mass Thought Destruction.

A few US pharmaceuticals firms get richer
on the backs of many poorer
nations
that want to avoid the fate of the now poor
neoChristian Iranian nation.

For the People of the Holy Worm
Holy Worm
Vaccination
was the mark of damnation
which was practiced by most nations.

The Vaccine
was seen
as the mark of Satan as can be seen
in the UPC Barcode 0 99900 00909 9
that does look fine
unless you do flip
and some people do flip.

It was hard for the People of the Holy Worm
to spread
their Holy Worms
since they dread
being forcefully dewormed
of their beloved Holy Worms
at many Holy Worm
deworming centers
located in most Community Health Centers
and Tertiary Hospitals
in US State Capitals

Spanish crown granted a person a specified number of natives of a specific community, with the indigenous leaders in charge of mobilizing the assessed tribute and labor. In turn, encomenderos were to take responsibility for their Indian charges, in particular the instruction of the Indians in the Christian faith. The receiver of the grant was to protect the natives from warring tribes and to instruct them in the Spanish language. In return they could extract tribute from the natives in the form of labor, gold, or other products.

In practice, the difference between encomienda and slavery could be minimal.[1] Many natives were forced to do hard labor and subjected to extreme punishment and death if they resisted

Americans generally don't go out to convert
people to American materialism
rather it's the World that converts
itself to American materialism
unlike the Spanish imposition
of Catholicism
via militarism
and mobilization
of the resources of the entire Spanish Nation.

It's mostly the civilian
Americans
that mostly export American Culture
for sure
and Americans
aren't the sole source of crass values
that we don't value.

The inability of America
to evolve up from Mass Culture
maybe for sure
due to the Democratic Nature
of American Pop Culture.

A fine
and refined
Aristocracy
historically
set cultural trends
until Democracy
ended
most Aristocracies.

mass culture conveys the idea that such culture emerges spontaneously from the masses themselves, like popular art did before the 20th century.[4] The expression media culture, on the other hand, conveys the idea that such culture is the product of the mass media. Another alternative term for media culture is "image culture."[1][2]

Media culture, with its declinations of advertising and public relations, is often considered as a system centered on the manipulation of the mass of society.[5] Corporate media "are used primarily to represent and reproduce dominant ideologies."[6] Prominent in the development of this perspective has been the word of Theodor Adorno since the 1940s.[5] Media culture is associated with consumerism, and in this sense called alternatively "consumer culture."

Corporations like the Church of Apple
and the Church of Starbucks
do most of the proselytizing
to get converts via advertising
and brand loyalty
can be like loyalty
to certain Religious Faiths
but unlike Religious Faith
the goods come in this life
and not in the afterlife.

I'm a member of the Church of Starbucks
like many people that have the bucks
to spend
on fine Coffee on which they depend.

If there's no afterlife
what's the point of not enjoying this life?

There maybe an afterlife
but in Heaven there's no beer
so that's why we drink it here.

Media culture, in its mass marketing, has been compared to the role of religions in the past. It has been considered as taking the place of the old traditional religions.[11][12][13] The waves of enthusiasm and fervent exaltation for a given product, a characteristic consumerist phenomenon, has been equipared to the "ecstasies of the convulsions and miracles of the old religious fetishism".[14][15]

Conversely, the Catholic Church, the dominant religion in the Western world, has been considered retrospectively as an antecedent and sophisticated form of Public relations, advertising and Multinational corporation, selling its product to a mass of worshipers/consumers

Let's agree that the purpose of giving to charity is to solve particular problems and choose the problem of world poverty. Let's also agree that we want to do the most effective thing to help reduce world poverty.

Charitable giving may not be the most effective way of solving world poverty. Indeed charitable giving may even distract from finding the best solution - which might involve a complex rethink of the way the world organises its economic relationships, and large-scale government initiatives to change people's conditions.

If that is so, then the effort put into charity might be better devoted to pressuring governments to bring about needed change. And governments might be more likely to focus on dealing with poverty if they weren't being helped by charities.

Nice defense of unrestrained capitalism.
What's the harm of self-indulgence, and the old Roman cultural values: Eat, drink, be merry; for tomorrow we die.
But I think the Afghan poppy farmers and the heroin processors and distributors probably think it hypocritical of us to flood them with anything having to do with sex, but forbid them to distribute heroin. There are lots of different ways to enslave people. My point is only that what is considered acceptable is all that changes. People remain people. Only the norms change. (Except Norm Sherman.)

Never judge anyone until you have biopsied their brain.

"Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle."
Known Some Call Is Air Am

What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such.... That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.

If we are at the 'End of History'
as was the story
told by Francis Fukuyama then the norms
today may still be the norms
tomorrow
until with some sorrow
we abandon our Humanity
and embrace Posthumanity.

Capitalism maybe natural for Humanity.

If I have some nice
rice
and if you have some cool
wool
we might trade
to aid
in our mutual
survival.

Trade
enhances our ability to survive
and the Free Market
keeps people alive.

I'm alive
because of the Free Market
where I do get
quality drugs
at drug
stores
that's so routine it's almost a bore.

It's the intention
of Fukuyama to warn us that
the Posthuman transition
may not enhance our collective condition.

It's already evident that
some people
are more gifted than other people
but if we get genetically enhanced people
like Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek
we could descend into a Trek
to hell
but very well
if we can genetically breed in humility
along with superior intellectual abilities
we may get the perfect Ruling Caste
for the Human Race.

A Posthuman Ruling Caste
will eliminate
the waste
of elections
that generally lead to selection
based largely on popularity
rather than ability.

strawman wrote:People remain people. Only the norms change.

In Our Posthuman Future, one of our greatest social philosophers begins to describe the potential effects of genetic exploration on the foundation of liberal democracy: the belief that human beings are equal by nature.

Augments were aggressive and arrogant, flaws which the scientists were unable to correct at the time, due to the infancy of the science. One of the Augments' creators realized this, writing that "superior ability breeds superior ambition."

The Confucian conception of nature is neither moral nor completely amoral, neither random nor completely deterministic. Nature does not have a clear moral orientation. So we can say nature is morally blind. (But we will point out later that nature is not totally blind. It does have some morally relevant preferences. So we can say nature is, morally speaking, almost blind, or quite blind.) As we can note from the two quotations I referred to earlier, nature does not make moral deliberation, and sometimes produces outcome that are undesirable or unacceptable from the moral point of view. As stated in the Book of Changes, "»[Nature] promotes all things without sharing the anxiety the sage has«" (»Great Appendix«, A5). As stated in the Doctrine of the Mean, "»Great as heaven and earth are, men still find some things in them with which to be dissatisfied«" (Chapter 12; Legge 1960, 392).

Confucius says nature isn't infallible
unlike the terrible
absolutism of some Fundamentalist Christians
against tinkering
with God's 'perfect' work because we can.

Tinkering
with genes
it seems
has been done by previously
and currently
by Humanity
via selective breeding
or artificial selection that breeds
for superior genetic traits
and now we have superior biotechnology
to get the superior genetic traits.

So much of "God's work"
needs
afterwork
and even Humanity itself needs
some Genetic Fixes indeed
and a World
with better
Humans
or PostHumans
will by definition be a better
World.

an evolution of an iron cage, which will be a technically ordered, rigid, dehumanized society.[5] The iron cage is the one set of rules and laws that we are all subjected and must adhere to.[16] Bureaucracy puts us in an iron cage, which limits individual human freedom and potential

unscrupulous leaders (government, churches, even parents) can and do turn religion into a tool by which to manipulate and control people, to keep the oppressed silent and the militant obedient. Perhaps the promise of better in the afterlife has kept, in some cases, honest people from realizing they could change the current world for the better. Perhaps the fear of undermined authority has led to the hurtful suppression of scientific knowledge, such as ideas that challenged basic tenets (e.g., the famous Gallilean story about the sun not going around the earth). And on a grand scale, we know how churches have historically abused their power through terrifying teachings, money-hungry schemes like indulgences, and even the terrible abuse of power and belief that produced the deadly Spanish Inquisition and American slave trade, among other things. Power-hungry manipulators hand us religion as not just a crutch, but as a confining cage.

We all
maybe just another Brick in the Wall
with the Wall
being defined as a bureaucracy
to which we belong.

Most of us cannot get along
well enough as an individual
and hence we sacrifice some individuality
to conform to a bureaucracy.

The Rational and Soulless Iron Cage
of Max Weber
may indeed never ever
release us since complex societies
breed complex bureaucracies.

The bureaucracy
of Weber's Iron Cage
is Secular and Rational
but Religion can also be a Golden Cage
that prevents our mostly rational
minds
from endeavoring to find
its own identity
away from religious group identity.

"Be Authentically Weird and be Weird
enough to be in a Category of One."

"It's time to shake up staid traditions
in favor of strange experimentation."

“Generally speaking, art is an expression of man’s need for an harmonious and complete life, that is to say, his need for those major benefits of which a society of classes has deprived him. That is why a protest against reality, either conscious or unconscious, active or passive, optimistic or pessimistic, always forms part of a really creative piece of work. Every new tendency in art has begun with rebellion”

While we may never
ever
be truly free
and as depressing that can be
Art can liberate thee.

Society
does stifle individuality
and true creativity
requires thee
to break free
of the
Rational Iron Cage
or the
Spiritual Golden Cage
to see
things differently.

Steve Jobs saw things differently
and broke out of the Cage.

If you do reject your "Cage"
then it's high time to engage
in some creative pursuits
that might suit
your personal interests
while the rest
of Society
stays firmly
in the inescapable
and somewhat terrible
Rational and Soulless Iron Cage
or a Spiritual Golden Cage.

"Be Authentically Weird and be Weird
enough to be in a Category of One."

"It's time to shake up staid traditions
in favor of strange experimentation."